Charles Ellicott Commentary John 4:44

"For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honor in his own country." — John 4:44 (ASV)

A prophet hath no honour.—The statement that a prophet has no honour in his own country is, at first thought, a strange explanation for the fact that He went into Galilee and that the Galileans received Him. The common geographical solutions—such as “His own country” meaning Judea, or Nazareth as distinct from Galilee, or the district of the so-called lower Galilee—are imposed upon the text, not derived from it.

The narrative of the earlier Gospels places the commencement of the ministry in Galilee. John, in these opening chapters, has told of an earlier ministry in Judea and Samaria. He now records the reception in Galilee, for which this earlier ministry had been the real introduction. Jesus Himself said so. He knew the principle that a prophet’s own friends are the last to hear his message. He came to His own country only when that message had been received by many in Judea and Samaria, and when His own countrymen had seen and known His work at the Passover. Others had received Him at Jerusalem, and therefore they received Him in Galilee. The honour is brought from outside; it does not arise in His own country.